Waxing Poetic About Abbotabad

I too had seen Christopher Hitchen's piece which captured a bit of the history of Abbotabad, named after James Abbot, while writing in his admirable pointed way:

The colonial British—like Maj. James Abbott, who gave his name to this one—called them "hill stations," designed for the rest and recreation of commissioned officers. The charming idea, like the location itself, survives among the Pakistani officer corps. If you tell me that you are staying in a rather nice walled compound in Abbottabad, I can tell you in return that you are the honored guest of a military establishment that annually consumes several billion dollars of American aid. It's the sheer blatancy of it that catches the breath.

But then the Boston Globe noted that James Abbot wrote a poem about Abbotabad which is in Lady Garden Square in the city. The opening lines:

I remember the day when I first came here
And smelt the sweet Abbottabad air

The trees and ground covered with snow
Gave us indeed a brilliant show

To me the place seemed like a dream
And far ran a lonesome stream

The wind hissed as if welcoming us
The pine swayed creating a lot of fuss

Josh Rothman concludes: "It looks like a pretty nice place to hide from the largest manhunt in the history of the world."

Indeed! And then there is my friend Michael Oberman who quipped:

Since the US found and killed Osama bin Laden in Abbotabad, Pakistan, it seems logical that the second in command of Al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri is hiding in Costellobad, Pakistan.